Johanna Konta out of Wimbledon after one of her team tests positive for Covid
Johanna Konta, Britain’s No1 women’s tennis player, has been forced to withdraw from Wimbledon on the eve of the tournament after being deemed a close contact of a member of her team who tested positive for Covid-19.
On Sunday morning a member of Konta’s team developed symptoms of the illness and returned a positive test later in the day. Konta, who had tested negative in her previous tests, will now have to isolate for 10 days. Under grand slam rules she will receive 50% of the £48,000 first-round prize money.
Tennis players at Wimbledon are currently under strict protocols in order to compete there. They are allowed to be accompanied by only three people while staying at an official tournament hotel and they can travel from the hotel to only the All England Lawn
Tennis Club. Konta had chosen to enter into the tournament’s protocols with her hitting partner, Dan Smethurst, her fiance, Jackson Wade, and Gill Myburgh, her fitness coach.
Konta had been drawn to face the world No 64, Katerina Siniakova, of the Czech Republic, on Tuesday.
Her withdrawal is a major blow as she represented Great Britain’s likeliest chance of a deep run in the women’s draw.
In recent months Konta has struggled badly with a chronic knee injury
and a difficult run of form that included first-round defeats at her last three grand slam championships. However, she entered Wimbledon after a positive turn of form during the grasscourt season.
Earlier in the month she won her fourth career WTA title in Nottingham, which was her first grass-court title. The 30-year-old then withdrew from warmup tournaments in Birmingham and Eastbourne in order to rest her knee and be at full strength for Wimbledon.
Konta, a semi-finalist at Wimbledon in 2017 and former world No 4, was defending a large number of points from a quarter-final result at Wimbledon in 2019. She is next scheduled to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
“A member of Johanna Konta’s team presented with Covid-19 symptoms this morning, and immediately isolated and undertook a PCR test in accordance with The Championships’ testing protocol,” said the AELTC in a statement. “A positive result was returned which resulted in the AELTC, together with Public Health England, identifying Johanna Konta to be a close contact. In line with government legislation, she is required to self-isolate for 10 days and therefore is withdrawn from The Championships.”
At the French Open in May, Konta said that despite being in support of vaccines she had not been vaccinated and she would “wait to see how things develop and how it fits into my life” before doing so. Regardless, Wimbledon’s Covid-19 protocols do not distinguish between those who have and have not started the vaccination process. In her pre-tournament press conference on Saturday, Konta spoke about the protocols at Wimbledon. “It’s a small price to pay to be able to be back and playing again here at Wimbledon,” she said. “The way the setup is, it’s quite similar to the US Open. It’s kind of like an all-inclusive cruise, that’s what it feels like. I’ve never been on a cruise, but that’s how I imagine an allinclusive cruise to be.”